Academy Award for Best Actress

Academy Award for Best Actress
The Academy Award For Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner.
The Best Actress award has been presented a total of 95 times, to 79 different actresses. The first winner was Janet Gaynor for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The most recent winner is Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once. The record for most wins is four, held by Katharine Hepburn. Frances McDormand has won three times, and twelve other actresses have won the award twice. Meryl Streep has received the most nominations in the category—seventeen—and has won twice. At the 41st Academy Awards, Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn received the same number of votes and thus tied for Best Actress—the only time this has occurred.
Nominations process
Nominees are currently determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy.
In the first three years of the awards, actors and actresses were nominated as the best individuals in their categories. At that time, all of their work during the qualifying period (as many as three films, in some cases) was listed after the award. Despite this, at the 3rd Academy Awards, held in 1930, only one film was cited in each winner's award regardless of how many they were eligible to be considered for during that span. The current system, in which an actress is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, was introduced for the 4th Academy Awards. Starting with the 9th Academy Awards, held in 1937, the category was limited to a maximum five nominations per year.
Winners and nominees
In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County; the ceremonies are always held the following year. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months, from August 1 to July 31. For the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple wins and nominations
The following individuals received two or more Best Actress awards:
The following individuals received three or more Best Actress nominations:
Age superlatives
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
! scope="col" |Record
! scope="col" |Actor
! scope="col" |Film
! scope="col" |Year
! scope="col" |Age
! class="unsortable" scope="col" |
|-
| Oldest Winner
| Jessica Tandy
| Driving Miss Daisy
| 1990
| 80
|
|- style="height:4.5em;"
| Oldest Nominee
| Emmanuelle Riva
| Amour
| 2013
| 85
|
|- style="height:4.5em;"
| Youngest Winner
| Marlee Matlin
| Children of a Lesser God
| 1987
| 21
|
|- style="height:4.5em;"
| Youngest Nominee
| Quvenzhané Wallis
| Beasts of the Southern Wild
| 2013
| 9
|
|}
Films with multiple Leading Actress nominations
Winners are in bold.
All About Eve (1950) – Anne Baxter and Bette Davis
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) – Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor
The Turning Point (1977) – Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine
Terms of Endearment (1983) – Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger
Thelma & Louise (1991) – Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon
Multiple character nominations
2 Nominations
Billie Holiday from Lady Sings the Blues (Diana Ross, 1972) & The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Andra Day, 2021)
Esther Victoria Blodgett / Vicki Lester from A Star Is Born (Janet Gaynor, 1937) & A Star Is Born (Judy Garland, 1954)
Josephine "Jo" March from Little Women (Winona Ryder, 1994) & Little Women (Saoirse Ronan, 2019)
Leslie Crosbie from The Letter (Jeanne Eagels, 1929) & The Letter (Bette Davis, 1940)
Marilyn Monroe from My Week with Marilyn (Michelle Williams, 2011) & Blonde (Ana de Armas, 2022)
Queen Elizabeth I from Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett, 1998) & Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Cate Blanchett, 2007)
See also
Academy Award for Best Actor
All Academy Award acting nominees
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
César Award for Best Actress
Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical
Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Notes
A: Rules at the time of the first three ceremonies allowed for a performer to receive a single nomination which could honor their work in more than one film. Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer were both nominated for two different roles in the same category. Current Academy rules forbid this from happening. No official reason was ever given as to why Shearer won the award for only one of the two films she was listed for.
B: Bette Davis's performance in Of Human Bondage was not nominated for an Oscar. Several influential people at the time campaigned to have her name included on the list, so for that year (and the following year also) the Academy relaxed its rules and allowed a write-in vote. Technically this meant that any performance was eligible to win the award, whether or not the person was an official nominee. While the Academy does not officially recognize this as a nomination for Davis, it has included her in the list of nominees for the 1935 ceremony on its official website.
C: Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand received the same number of votes, resulting in both actresses receiving the award, according to Academy rules.
D: Elliot Page was nominated before his gender transition in 2020.
References
Bibliography
External links
Oscars.org (official Academy site)
The Academy Awards Database (official site)
Oscar.com (official ceremony promotional site)
Academy Awards
Best Actress Academy Award winners
Film awards for lead actress